This weekend brought the inaugural lawn mowing of 2008. We had postponed it as long as possible, but with the grass quickly reaching foresty heights I had no choice but get out there and clear-cut it. Saturday was a cold, windy day and the mower didn’t feel a bit like starting. I decided since getting the thing going would be a struggle, I might as well give it the good maintenance once-over. I polished the spark plug, took off the blade (which was rusted on) and sharpened it with a hand file, replaced the air filter, and drained the gas and refilled it with some fresh stuff. After all that it fired up without too much trouble.
As I was sharpening the blade I got wondering about how many people even bother. When I went to Home Depot to grab an air filter I saw people buying new blades for $30-40. Sure enough, after 15 minutes of sharpening, my old blade was super sharp and as good as ever. Sure, I can see buying one if your blade gets warped or has a big chunk broken off by some stealthy lawn boulder, but those babies are pretty serious pieces of steel, so that can’t be very common. I’m thinking that fixing things at home is becoming a lost art.
Last time I had the wheel grinder up and running, I sharpenned the lawn mower blades, some camping axes and a few other lawn items. People looked at me as though I was planning a homicide.